


relating to the home

by cptsuke



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 03:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20324191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsuke/pseuds/cptsuke
Summary: brief moments of Adrian and Deran living together, learning their habits, set in s4





	relating to the home

**Author's Note:**

> literally only wrote this because i was crying to a friend about the fact that deran bought a fancy little tray to keep his weed paraphenalia after three seasons of keeping it on various frisbees and the conversation devolved into i bet he just frets over every little buy, like is this the right thing? does this belong in my house? at 3am in the morning and then i foolishly decided i needed to have it done before the finale.

Adrian's not prepared.

At first he figures he'll be fine, he's more worried that the house will turn into some sort filthy frat house than anything else.

Living with Deran shouldn't be too much of a shock to the system.

And he's right. For the most part.

But.

Well.

There's a few things.

Maybe he was a bit naive, thinking of the weeks in Belize as a guide, sure he remembers Deran not sleeping much, but none of them had slept much. It'd been five weeks of playing hard, crashing fast and being up before dawn to catch the waves.

But it takes Adrian less than a week to realize that Deran might go to bed with Adrian, go to sleep with him, but by the early hours of morning, sometimes two am, sometimes three, he'd be staring at the ceiling.

It takes him another couple of days to work out how to broach the subject.

“You can get up, you know.” he mumbles sleepily into Deran's shoulder, and Deran stiffened further like he hadn't expected Adrian to notice his human pillow had gotten tense as fuck. “Hey, _hey.”_

Deran's shifting now like he's not sure what he's supposed to do now he's been caught out, but Adrian's ready to nip that shit in the bud.

“Hey, come on, talk to me man.”

“I'm not,” when Deran speaks he doesn't seem to know what to say, just that he needs to say something. “I don't need to, I just, I don't sleep much.”

It's dark in their room but there's enough filtered light from outside to make out the lines of each other's faces, there's enough light for Deran to see Adrian's sleepy smile.

“If you need to get up and do something, then get up.” He presses his lips against the smooth skin of Deran's shoulder, reveling in the way Deran leans towards him when he does. “Just come back.”

Deran rolls towards him head ducking down to burrow into Adrian's chest, his fingers slip down along his stomach to tuck into the waistband of his pants, Just sitting there like he needs something to hold onto.

Adrian doesn't know all of Deran's secrets, stuff he doesn't ask about, things that Deran can't talk about even if he wanted to. Maybe Deran just doesn't sleep much for mundane reasons, it doesn't matter, Adrian decides as he rearranges himself to wrap his arms around Deran, to press his face into his hair.

“Just don't leave without letting me know.”

So they figure out the sleep thing, Deran wanders the house, smokes outside staring at the waves, stress cleans worse than Adrian which somehow surprises them both when the night before Adrian's due to fly out they end up arguing over who's doing the dishes. Dishwater ends up all over the kitchen, a plate gets smashed in an impromptu tug of war and after they stop laughing they christen the kitchen table. Adrian stares at the water dripping from the sink as he lays on his back on the table, feeling sated and the right type of sore.

“I have to sit for ten hours on an airplane, you asshole.”

Deran looks up, unsticking his face from the sweat on Adrian's chest, eyes hooded and unreadable.

“You can fuck me if you want.”

And Adrian's brain short circuits for a moment, they haven't swapped it around for what seems like forever, sense memory and Deran's current naked proximity gives Adrian some pretty vivid images.

But Deran's relationship with sex was a complicated beast and Adrian never wants to fall into the trap of sex as an apology again.

Deran's hairs getting long enough for him to wind it around his fingers, so he does. Uses it to gently drag Deran's face to his.

“I need a shower,” he tells him between kisses. “Why don't you blow me while I do that?”

Deran smiles but his eyes flicker across to the mess they've made and that won't do.

“That is,”Adrian tugs at Deran's hair, gently, just enough to get his full attention back. “if you think you won't drown.”

Adrian hopes at some time he'll stop feeling like his hearts going to stop - like he's been winded in the best way - every time Deran blushes and smiles that soft smile at him. He's not going to survive this relationship otherwise.

And he's _really_ not because then Deran's soft smile turns into the sharp toothed grin that destroyed all Adrian's defenses at seventeen.

“I think I can hold my breath long enough.” He says into Adrian's skin as he leans further down and then suddenly he's picking Adrian up and that's only going to end in disaster. They're both sweaty and slippery, exhausted and Adrian weighs a tonne no matter how nice Deran's arms look when they flex.

It does predictably end with Adrian knocking an ankle on one of the kitchen cabinets, and then Deran clips his elbow on the doorway which sends them both down into a giggling mess of limbs on the floor.

Maybe, Adrian thinks as he doesn't even bother trying to untangle himself before launching himself at Deran's face, maybe disaster isn't so bad if it results in them making out on the floor at 3am.

They do eventually end up in bed. Deran's hair is damp against the back of Adrian's neck as he clings to Adrian's back. He'd dropped off to sleep almost immediately, but Adrian's found himself suddenly not tired, staring into the darkness, face smooshed up against the tangle of arms wrapped around him. They haven't quite worked it all out yet. But they will. Adrian'll take a crick in the neck every morning if this is how he goes to sleep each night.

He can have this. He'll make this work out. He can do this.

In the morning the dishes sat cleaned and left to dry on the sink and Adrian would pick his battles and let Deran have the win this time, lets himself just be pleased that at least whatever time Deran got up, he was back in bed early enough to be asleep next to him in the morning.

He drops Adrian off at the Airport - Deran picks him up sometimes when he's not too busy and it's so normal that Adrian shouldn't feel the thrill he does when he sees the scout is parked out in the arrivals area - Deran kisses him goodbye in the car before Adrian gets out.

“You should come in and make out with me in front of the TSA,” he'd laughed and Deran with pink cheeks joked back about that getting Adrian a full body search. That had hit a little too close to home and against Adrian's best attempts Deran seems to notice the mood shifting. It's Adrian's fault this time though Deran doesn't know it and Adrian doesn't know how to tell him, can't think of a lie that won't make it all worse.

So he let's it go, let's Deran stare down at his lap with a shamefaced sort of look on his face, Adrian will make it up to him. When this is all over, when he's free and clear and the DEA's eyes are far from him, far from where they might accidentally cast across to Deran, Adrian swears to himself that he'll make it up to him.

The last thing. (and it's not the last thing because Adrian's never going to tire of coming home – _home - _ and finding Deran in the middle of doing something mundane, silly or serious, or a weird mix of all of the above, where he gets to learn something new about the man he shares - a youth, over a decade of stupid shit – a house with.)

But one last thing is Deran's obsession with buying things for the house. Usually on his phone. In the middle of the night. When he definitely supposed to be sleeping. Adrian doesn't know how many times he's woken up to the soft glow of Deran's phone, the slight movements in his arms as he swiped around the screen.

_Are you on grindr?_ he'd asked once, more than half asleep, but the full body jerk and affronted look had woken him up enough to laugh at Deran's discomfort. Eventually Deran had just flipped his phone screen to face Adrian and after the light had finished blinding him, he could see a set of wooden stools that'd look nice at their counter, and then swiping left to see the same seats but in steel.

He thinks he maybe makes a comment, says something to appease Deran's very serious face before ducking his head down to hide from the light, and drift back to sleep but it's not until the wooden seats are delivered to their door that he knows what the decision was.

After that Deran shows his phone's screen slightly more often, he's still a secretive little shit – no amount of time is every going to stop him from keeping his phone face down when it's on the table – but Adrian can handle that, it's not directed at him, and until he sorts out his shit he doesn't want to see whatever messages get passed between Cody's. He does like Deran asking for his input though, makes his stomach feel twisted in maybe a good way that a lot of his opinions seem to be the ones Deran chooses, like maybe he's not dreaming too big when he thinks about where he is – where they are – and it lasting longer than he ever could have hoped when he was seventeen.

He's tried to explain it to Jess, but she had her own complicated relationships and the two of them never could fully understand the other's stance. So they both sat at the impasse of I am behind you one hundred percent but when it crashes and burns my surprise will be completely faked and only for your benefit.

It's hard to explain that some of the things Deran does feels like a memory so old Adrian's half convince he made it up. The new things he's learning are like the first expressions of a man's first steps into the light. Sides of Deran he's not sure anyone else has ever been allowed to see, things Deran's doing now that Adrian thinks he maybe kind of remembers from when Deran was a bright eyed cocky kids, who smiled more like he meant it, who'd be the first one to show Adrian something he'd decided was cool, who'd talk shit for hours just so he'd have Adrian's attention.

The mature version of that kid makes Adrian feel things; his undivided attention, sharing a bed, Deran making breakfast, hell even the way Deran would just walk up to him sometimes and drop his forehead into the middle of Adrian's back and just stand there, like the contact was the only thing keeping him standing.

All these little memories and moments Adrian wants to keep to himself. And he wants to make more.


End file.
